Radio Free Albemuth

I haven't really had a ton of time to view many fantastic films or post much here on Obscurantist Drivel lately other than the odd commercial or two, though I did sit down to watch some more trad films, most recently The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Ten Commandments (1956), the latter of which had some pretty interesting proto-sci-fi/horror concepts.

One genre film that I did happen to catch last week on Netflix was the 2010 adaptation of Philip K. Dick's Radio Free Albemuth, which despite the low budget and Syfy channel level acting and special effects was a pretty faithful and interesting adaptation of PKD's posthumously published novel of political paranoia and an alien satellite beaming knowlege directly into people's brains via a pink laser beam.  Keep an eye open for small parts from Rich Sommer (Harry Crane from Mad Men) as an FBI agent and Ashley Greene (one of the sparkly vampires from Twilight) as a Jesus fish necklace wearing delivery person.  And hey, isn't that Alanis Morissette?!  Maybe some day we'll also get a screen adaptation of VALIS, PKD's published-during-his-lifetime and amazingly-even-weirder-than-the-original rewrite of Radio Free Albemuth; if Amazon's upcoming The Man in the High Castle series is a hit, I'm sure we'll see more PKD adaptations coming down the pike.

Don't go in expecting a Blade Runner type visual masterpiece; if your expectations are tempered accordingly you may enjoy this odd little talky low budget film, obviously a labor of love from its creators; there are worse ways to waste a couple hours of your life.

Here's the trailer: